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The ongoing war on Iran may have drastically reduced the amount of oil passing from West Asia to the rest of the world, but there is a bright side, literally: surging solar panel sales.
According to Yale Environment 360, China has reached a record high for solar panel exports as suppliers scramble for oil alternatives. In March, one month into the US-Iran war that began on February 28, the People’s Republic doubled the number of solar panels it was exporting, distributing 68 gigawatts of photovoltaic cells and silicon wafers.
That’s an astonishing spike across one month — for context, the US has only an estimated 70 gigawatts of new solar generating capacity scheduled to come online across all of 2026 and 2027. According to data from the think-tank Ember Energy, China exported more solar capacity in March alone than the entire nation of Spain installed in the previous decade.
Per Ember, the banner month traces back to increased demand in Asia and Africa in particular. Across all of Africa, Chinese solar imports grew by 176 percent from February to March, while Chinese exports to the rest of Asia reached 39 gigawatts worth of capacity. In all, 55 countries set all-time records for Chinese solar purchases.
It’s also an astonishing self-own for US president Donald Trump, an avowed foe of both renewables and China — but whose foray into Iran is now offering an historic boost to both.
While the long-term impacts of accelerating the world’s solar infrastructure seems obvious enough, the record-breaking numbers come with important implications for the Chinese solar industry. As a number of hawkish analysts have argued, the PRC’s solar sector seems to be experiencing a crisis of overproduction, resulting in over 40 solar corporations exiting the market over the past few years.
Going forward, one of the big questions will be whether the insatiable demand spurred by the US-Iran war can meaningfully dent China’s overcapacity of solar infrastructure output. Regardless, it’s clear China made the right bet in investing in fossil fuel-alternatives as peace talks between the US and Iran drag on, with no end in sight.
More on solar energy: Scientists Set New Record for Solar Cell Efficiency